Taxi Blog

White Rabbit

As I sit here and watch the trailer for the (somewhat) new Johnny Depp  movie Alice in Wonderland, I realize that I too, am late, late, for a very important date, with January (and February, March….) Taxi blog pages. Ah well. Better late than never. For most things.

For a quick update in the world of taxi:

New York – Dateline March 3- NYC Taxis Overcharge Passengers $8.3 Million. According to the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), of the city’s 48,300 cabbies, over 35,000 have overcharged passengers by (the implication is deliberately) pressing the rate 4, which gives time and a half for out of town trips, rather than the regular rate on the meter.

New York-Dateline May 15 – Maybe it was more like 2200. Apparently, the way the system was set up, it was easy to inadvertently switch on the rate 4 at then end of the trip and not change the fare at all. Nonetheless, there are 633 drivers that overcharged (again one would assume deliberately) more than 50 times each, and they face license revocation. There are another 1,671 who overcharged between 10 and 49 times who face a choice of a very stiff fine, or revocation.

I say, GOOD RIDDENCE. Get the cheaters and thieves out of the industry where they give everyone a bad name.  I would rather have my car sit than roll it with a thief. Lost in the sauce, however, was the fact that the TLC, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg , along with the headline hungry news media, was quick to condemn what amounted to almost the entire driving corps without ever truly analyzing the data, which was readily available. It was only after the Taxi Worker’s Alliance, led by Bhairavi Desai, and the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, an association of taxicab fleet owners, independently met with city officials to point out the flaws in the design of the PIM systems that not only led to the overcharging, but which also led to a miscalculation in the extent of the overcharging after it was discovered, did the TLC backtrack and say that maybe it was not 38,000 drivers deliberately ripping off the riding public.

New York- Dateline  March 12th- David Yassky replaces former TLC Chair Matthew Daus. Just in time to inherit the 38000 accused thieves.  To date, relations with Chairman Yassky have been pleasantly cooperative. Let’s hope we can keep that up. As for Matt Daus, regardless of which side of the fence you were on in local taxicab politics, the former commissioner was a stellar ambassador for the New York City taxicab system wherever he went.  Kind of like Nixon in China, but without the break in.

San Francisco – Dateline – January something or other – San Francisco experiments with medallion sales, albeit in a very controlled environment designed to keep investors (New Yorkers) out. Sorry guys. For years, cab drivers in SF have operated permits that they had no legal right to sell or transfer. The new program will allow permit holders over 70 years of age to sell their permits to parties designated by the city, at a rate designated and guaranteed by the city, and financed by lenders approved by the city. Since fleet owners cannot help direct sales of permits that they operate to new owners who will continue to lease those permits to the same company, this could be devastating to the city’s largest cab operators.

Chicago – Yellow Cab, Checker Cab, and Taxi Medallion Management, a taxicab fleet operator, are working together with Clean Energy, and the City of Chicago to install two natural gas stations for use by taxicabs and other CNG fueled vehicles in the city.  The program was funded by a federal grant that provides for monies for both building the stations, and paying for CNG conversions for vehicles.

More news to come. We are back. We think.